


The One Where the Gang Learns How Quentin Got That Black Eye

by Lexalicious70



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: AU, Brunch, M/M, The Physical Kids - Freeform, the gang's all here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:22:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23795332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lexalicious70/pseuds/Lexalicious70
Summary: The Physical Kids get together for brunch and learn how Quentin got a black eye.
Relationships: Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh
Comments: 11
Kudos: 71





	The One Where the Gang Learns How Quentin Got That Black Eye

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WonderfullyWonderingAlone59](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WonderfullyWonderingAlone59/gifts).



> This was inspired by @fishydwarrows ( @wow_then on Twitter) and their amazing art! Check out their work and get a commission: I did, and it’s the pride of my home office! This is also for @WonderfullyWonderingAlone59, who always gives me amazing Queliot bunnies like this one. Comments and kudos are magic and as always, enjoy!

The One Where the Gang Learns How Quentin Got That Black Eye 

By Lexalicious70 (Quentins_Quill) 

“C’mon man, spill! What happened?” 

“Yeah, tell us!” 

Quentin scowled as he sat down with his buffet plate full of scrambled eggs and bacon, accompanied by a side of fresh berries. The cafe bustled around him, Sunday brunch busy, where the Physical Kids were gathering for brunch. While none of them had resided at Brakebills for the better part of a year, they still met at this place once a month, nestled in the heart of Manhattan, which Eliot and Quentin had recently made their home. 

“If you don’t tell us, we’re just going to make up some terrible rumor to spread around,” Josh Hoberman piped up as he worked on a Belgain Waffle nearly the size of the plate it sat on. 

“You didn’t get into a fight with someone on the subway, did you?” Alice asked as she added several heaping teaspoons of sugar to her coffee. 

Kady snorted. 

“Have you ever seen this one throw a punch?” She asked, jerking her head at Quentin. 

“It’s nothing!” Quentin said as he stirred milk into his coffee, shaking his head a bit so the longer section of his tawny hair hid his left eye. The skin surrounding the eye showed muted shades of green and yellow among the half-moon of a black bruise on the lower eyelid, which curved up around the inner eye and nearly spread to Quentin’s nose. 

“That’s a shiner, Q,” Margo said as she cut her crepe in half. “And if you don’t tell us what happened--” 

“I will, and with such detail you’ll feel like you were there,” Eliot finished for her as he set down his plate of food and bumped Alice with one lean hip. “Budge over, there’s a dear,” he nodded as he made room for himself next to Quentin. The younger magician glowered at Eliot through the curtain of his hair. 

“El, don’t, okay?” 

“Oh shit,” Penny chuckled. “This has to be good.” 

“I’m so glad my pain amuses you!” Quentin shot back, and Eliot put an arm around his partner. 

“If circumstances were reversed, I’d want you to share the tale.” 

“If circumstances were reversed, you wouldn’t be here because you would have refused to leave our apartment without a decorative eyepatch!” Quentin said. “One that matched your outfit!” 

“He’s got you there, El,” Margo nodded. 

“How is the new place?” Josh asked. “Life on the outside?” 

“Now that you mention it . . .” Eliot grinned, and Quentin rounded his lean shoulders. 

“You’re going to tell it, aren’t you.” 

“If I don’t desensitize you to my gossipy nature now, you’ll spend the next sixty years or so in constant horror.” He patted Quentin’s shoulder. “It was yesterday morning and I’d gone out around sunrise for a coffee run . . .” 

*** ***

Quentin Coldwater was not, nor had ever been, a morning person. He despised the way some people rolled out of bed when their alarms went off, ready to shower and dress and face the day. Quentin, on the other hand, usually wore out his alarm’s snooze button until it bore the impression of his impatient, jabbing fingertip and the indication letters wore away. It had amazed his father when Quentin’s high school informed him his son had won a perfect attendance award for the fourth year running, as Quentin always seemed surly and running late on weekday mornings. 

This morning was no different, and Quentin groaned as he swung a hand over to silence his alarm. While he enjoyed his new job as a book tracker and shelver at the magical archive that operated in secret on the top floor of the New York Library, mornings still ranked right up there on Quentin’s hate list, which included spiders, vanilla perfume, and people who folded book page corners over to mark their place instead of being civilized and using a goddamn bookmark. He blinked a few times, the still-unfamiliar ceiling of his and Eliot’s new apartment coming into focus. The other side of the bed was empty except for a lavender-hued sticky note on Eliot’s pillow with a short message dashed across it: 

**Coffee run, BRB.**

**\--El**

Quentin sat up and stretched, reveling in the silence. The Physical Kids cottage had always been full of noise at all hours of the day, with people casting spells and rattling around in the kitchen and fighting and fucking. Quentin still marveled over the fact that any of them had graduated while living there. 

He shuffled to the bathroom, one hand rubbing over the stubble on his chin as he shimmied off his boxers and left them in front of the bathroom door. A tut of his hand turned the shower on and Quentin yawned as he took down a fresh white towel and hung it on the chrome hook outside the stall. A moment later he was stepping into the hot spray, his head tilted back, wearing nothing but rivulets of water. He let it wash away the odors of sleep and warm sheets and the mingled scent that he and Eliot made together with magic and bare skin and sweet, sticky wine. The shower’s built-in bottle rack, heavy with Eliot’s vast supply of body lotions, salt scrubs, and shampoos, was in such easy reach that Quentin didn’t bother opening his eyes as he pumped out a few squirts of his own shampoo and began to lather his wet hair, his surroundings falling away as he massaged his scalp and let the scent of cedar and cypress envelop him. Responsibility loomed, but it was still well over an hour away. His hands worked over his hair and he fell, as always, into that space in his head where verdant valleys and chiming waterfalls rioted under twin moons and beaches with black sand and stark white seas . . . 

The shower curtain jerked aside suddenly, the rings rattling on the steel rod and Quentin shrieked in complete startlement, his eyes flying open, then shrieked again as they filled with thick globs of shampoo lather. He spun in a circle, his arms flailing, momentarily blind, his fight-or-flight instinct locked in mortal combat with each other. Eliot blinked, a to-go coffee cup in each hand. 

“Are we out of--Q, stop screaming, it’s just me--whipped topping? Jesus--” Eliot flinched and set the cups down as he reached for Quentin, but not before the younger magician lost his footing on the wet shower tiles and pitched forward, yelping in pain as he bashed his face on the shower rack. Pain radiated up the left side of his face and then Eliot’s large, elegant hands were on his shoulders, steadying him. He moaned and put a hand to his eye, expecting to see a mangled eyeball in his palm when he pulled it away, but there was only a small smear of blood from a shallow cut just above his eyebrow. Eliot turned off the water. “Q, what the hell is the matter with you?” 

“What’s the matter with you?” Quentin shot back, his face throbbing. “Don’t you know how to fucking knock?” 

“On a shower curtain?” 

“On the bathroom  _ door _ , El!” 

“My hands were full and I left you a note that I was coming right back . . . here, let me see . . .” Eliot pushed Quentin’s hair back and tilted his chin up.” “Christ. You’re going to have one hell of a shiner, my Puppy.” 

“Don’t call me Puppy!” 

Eliot led his partner out of the shower and wet a cloth with warm water, which he applied to Quentin’s eye. 

“Did you really forget I’d be back with our coffee?” He asked. 

“I . . . I guess I don’t compartmentalize very well,” Quentin admitted. “I was daydreaming--” 

“And you’re not used to people barging into the bathroom since you graduated Brakebills and had your own place before we moved in here.” 

“I guess not.” Quentin flinched as Eliot doctored his eye. “What am I going to tell people at work?” 

Eliot broke into a grin. 

“I wouldn’t worry about them--I’d worry more about what you’re going to tell everyone when we meet for brunch on Sunday. 

Quentin groaned and buried his face in his hands. 

“Oh, shit--oww--shit!” 

*** *** 

“Go ahead, laugh!” Quentin said, raising his voice over the din of the group’s laughter. 

“Oh man . . .” Penny made a show of wiping his eyes with one end of the ornate scarf he wore. “I’d say I wish I’d have been there, but I do not need to see you naked again!” 

Alice blushed within a spate of chuckles. 

“Only you could get a black eye in the shower, Quentin!” 

“Personally?” Margo said as she took a sip of her mimosa. “I’m disappointed. I was hoping for a juicy BDSM-moment-in-the-shower-gone-awry kind of tale.” 

“Maybe next time, Bambi.” Eliot winked at her and stroked a hand through Quentin’s hair. “I don’t think my Puppy is quite ready for those kinds of games.” 

“Don’t call me Puppy,” Quentin replied, but a smile tugged at the corners of his lips, showing the dimples Eliot wanted to be buried in each time they made an appearance. 

“Let’s have another round,” Penny said as he set down his empty glass. “And Q? Try not to hurt yourself during the next toast.” 

“I’ll toast your ass,” Quentin retorted as the waiter brought a fresh tray of mimosas to the table. Penny lifted his glass. 

“To the Physical Kids.” 

“To magic!” 

“To Brakebills.” 

Eliot smiled as Quentin leaned against him and he lifted his glass. 

“To us.” 

“To us,” Quentin nodded, tilting his head upward so Eliot could kiss him. He tasted like champagne and strawberries, and his touch and closeness lit up even the darkest corners of Quentin’s heart. 

_ Even the clumsiest of us get lucky sometimes.  _

THE END 


End file.
